Seahawks punt team closes in on history

As recently explained by Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times, the record for a 16-game season is 49 yards, set by the 2008 Falcons. The lowest amount for a 14-game season was set in 1967, when Vince Lombardi’s Packers allowed only 22.

Talk of history started after the Seahawks held Rams rookie Tavon Austin to only seven yards on three returns.

Punter Jon Ryan explains that the return yardage has dropped over time, as his punting average has plunged four yards, from 46.6 to 42.6.

“When I was younger, I gave up a lot of return yards because I was known as a big-leg guy that liked to get it out there but didn’t always have the greatest hang time,’’ Ryan said. “So a lot of those punts were coming back 10-15 yards every time. Those add up.”

Now, he relies more heavily on an “Aussie kick.” It generates more hang time, less yardage, and in return reduced opportunities for return yardage.

For Sunday’s opponent, stopping the Seahawks from setting the record is one of the few things left to play for.

Well ST is one of the areas that most teams seem to consistently struggle with. It represents an element of the game that you can pickup a nice advantage in if you can stay technically sound while every other team bangs their head against the wall and keeps shooting themselves in the foot.

Most teams just don’t put enough emphasis into making a science out of ST play, and they just kind of wing it and in sloppy fashion. It’s a very complex assortment of things that fall into the ST department, and you can’t possibly enjoy a lot of benefit there unless you are really going out of your way to plan and engineer an advantage. It’s seemingly just way too difficult and beyond some teams to get a handle on. And then they have to make up for that some other way. It’s not a healthy way to compete at football if you can’t get your ST department up to code.

I’m happy for the Seahawks to be within reach of the record, that’s pretty neat!

rap49er says:
Dec 14, 2013 1:52 PM
Of course there were no return yards last week against the Niners. The punts were so short that they couldn’t do anything but fair catch. Net win for Niners.
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Ryan was definitely not impressive last week, definitely his worst punting game of the season. He’s been MONEY all year long though, perfectly matching distance with kicking to coverage. Last week was a very poor depiction of how good the Seahawks punt team has been.